When the Fall Isn’t the End | Acts 20:7–16 | Jacob Smoak

Welcome to the Kingdom Life podcast.

Have you ever wondered what it looks like to live with a faith that refuses to quit, even when life takes an unexpected turn?

Today, you're about to discover a powerful story of faith, purpose, and the miraculous.

In Acts 20, 7 through 16, Pastor Jacob spoke to unpacks one of the most incredible moments in the early church.

A young man falls asleep during Paul's message, falls from a third story window, and is brought back to life.

But this passage is about for more than a miracle.

It's about the majesty of God's ministry, the power of his presence, and what it means to stay faithful to his calling.

Whether you've been walking with Christ for years, or you're simply searching for hope, we believe today's message will challenge you, encourage you, and point you to the life-changing power of Jesus.

So wherever you're listening from, lean in, open your heart, and let's dive into God's word together.

Um, no, like I said, I'm a student pastor, so um I do like to make jokes, have fun, um, because you know, part of what God's had to teach me so that I can work with students is that fun and deep spiritual truths are are not against each other.

All right, those are not opposed, we can do both at the same time.

So I'm gonna invite you this morning, have a little bit of fun with me, indulge me a little bit here and there, um, and we're gonna have a good time looking at God's word together this morning.

Um, so remind you a little bit about me.

I know I've gotten to preach before, um, but I'm a student pastor, so I'm working with sixth through twelfth grade students that's middle school and high school age.

I absolutely love them.

They are everything, they're so much fun.

Um, I love it, okay?

So they are a true joy.

I don't just do it.

Um, it's not just a stepping stone, so I can be like a pastor of adults one day.

Like I want to pastor students, okay?

Um and I've gotten to have some experience pastoring adults, and I love you guys, alright?

I love you guys, but I'm gonna stick to students, alright?

So, you know, um, so um I'm gonna stick to students, but I'm excited to be with you guys today because it is a good change of pace.

Um, and it's always good to get up in front of you guys and get to spend um Sunday mornings with y'all from up here.

Um, now the last time I preached, uh, I had y'all do a couple of weird things, had you close your eyes and imagine what I was reading to you, story time with Jacob and everything.

Um we may do a little bit of that again today, so be ready for that, alright?

Um, but I'm excited because today we're talking about a passage that is somewhat well known, alright?

If you've ever heard of Eudychus, um, the guy who fell out of a window, okay?

Sorry, I did spoil the story for anybody who hasn't read it.

I'm sorry, alright.

That is, it's not the ending though, alright?

So you'll get to see it later if you haven't read this story before.

That's your hook.

Um, I'm very excited to read it.

I'm very excited to look at what it has to say to us about our lives today.

I want to start by sharing with you a little bit of a story that I think connects well and in a fun way.

Um so I love dogs.

Always have loved dogs growing up, always grown up with dogs.

And uh me and my wife have a dog.

I should have thrown a picture in my slideshow, I'm sorry.

Uh me and my wife have a dog named Mosby, alright?

Um we have a dog named Mosby.

And we love him.

He is the weirdest little mix of every breed of dog imaginable.

Um, and he just can't get right.

Like he just looks goofy all the time.

Um, the poor guy.

But I also had some dogs that my parents still have that I grew up with through uh high school and stuff, so they're old now and you know, all that kind of stuff.

Um one of them, his name is Chonko, alright?

That is Spanish for pig.

Alright, and so um he looks like he looks like a pig when we got him.

He's just this little thing you can hold him in in one hand, right?

Uh maybe two.

But he is now, he is, he has a bloodhound GSP mix, so he's massive, alright?

My parents have been feeding him better than when I used to feed him, and he's really filled out.

I think they started giving my portions to him once I moved out of the house a few years back.

And it's just catching up with him now, years of eating too good.

Um, but one thing about Chonko, it's just a funny quirk he's got.

When he was a puppy, we showed him a laser pointer.

Alright?

Now, most people think that cats chase laser pointers.

We can't get our cat to chase a laser pointer for anything.

But Chonko is locked onto this thing.

And it became such a foundational thing about him as a puppy that still to this day, everything in Chonko's life revolves around this laser pointer and he's gonna get it.

It's kind of like if you watch Tom and Jerry, if Tom was a dog and Jerry was a non-existent red dot, that is their relationship.

And Chonko, everything he does, he is looking for that laser.

Alright?

Like, if you even if you even look at him and you can go, like, where is it?

He'll start scouring the house.

He'll use pause and move stuff, he'll stick his nose in things, he is looking for it.

If you pick up your phone and you just hold it like this, he thinks it's a laser.

He'll start looking, he'll start going crazy, he'll start foaming at the mouth, he'll he'll run into stuff.

He is so set on this laser, right?

Everything in his life is revolving around this laser because it's something so simple.

He saw it as a puppy and it's stuck with him.

And everything else we've taught him somehow is built upon this laser obsession, all right?

And so he sits for treats, and if he thinks, we'll shine a laser for him.

Alright?

And I tell you all that today, we're gonna be looking at a group of people.

A lot of times in this story, all we look at is the action of this guy falling out of a window.

But we're gonna be looking at a group of people today whose entire lives, everything they did was built on some foundational beliefs.

And that's what we're gonna be looking at today.

Um, if you didn't know, dogs are great sermon illustrations.

We are way too similar to dogs.

Um, we have a lot of similarities.

And so I use them a good bit, and I think by the end of the sermon you'll see why.

So we're gonna be in Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

We're gonna be picking up where Alex left off.

Acts chapter 20, verse 7 is where we're gonna be picking up.

Acts 20:7

Last week, Alex shared with you a little bit of an itinerary of where Paul was traveling.

If you don't know, Paul is in his third missionary journey, his last missionary journey.

He doesn't know that yet, but it will be his last missionary journey.

And so there's a little bit of dramatic irony for us as we know what's coming.

We know that we're kind of um on the on the downward slope of this story as we're moving in towards um the end of it.

And so Paul is stopping off in some different places, and um, he comes to Troaz.

That's one of the places on his way.

He's headed for Jerusalem.

He stops off in Troaz to encourage some believers.

And um, while he's here, he spends some very special time with these believers, and some incredible things happen.

So, what we're gonna do is we're just gonna start off.

I want to remind you of the theme of the book of Acts that we've been following, and that is the unstoppable advance of the kingdom of God.

And nothing is going to stop the advancement of the kingdom of God.

Um, no circumstance is gonna stop it, no person is going to oppose it and stop it.

Even us by being disobedient, we aren't going to stop the advancement of the kingdom of God.

Last time I spoke on chapter 17, one of the points I talked about was God's kingdom's gonna advance.

His will's gonna be done.

The question isn't, can we stop it or are we gonna hinder it?

No, the the question is, are we gonna get on board with it?

It's happening with or without us.

Are we gonna get on board with that?

So today we're gonna look at these group people who absolutely know and believe that and see how it plays out in their lives.

So we're gonna start in verse 7 of chapter 20 says this on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.

There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.

And a young man named Eudychus, or well, we'll pause right there, actually.

I think I think I want to pause and talk, and then we'll go.

I don't want to spoil the story, even though I already did.

Alright, so verses nine and seven and eight is what we'll talk about first, and and and I want to talk about it first before we move on because it's easy to miss this.

Again, it's easy to just jump to there's a guy with a window, and you know, the rest of it if you missed my spoiler earlier.

But it's easy to miss what happened first.

First thing I want you to notice is it says in verse 7, on the first day of the week.

Alright, now, I'm not gonna go into all the super interesting stuff about how ancient cultures used to track time, but this gives us a time frame, depending on which calendar they're operating on, of either this happened on a Saturday evening all the way to a Monday morning.

It's somewhere in that time span, okay?

Of either Saturday night or Sunday night is when this was happening.

And you'll notice it was when they were gathered to break bread.

When they were gathered to break bread.

They were already gathering to break bread.

There was already a regular meeting for them to get together and to break bread.

Says then that Paul talked with them because he was intending to depart the next day.

He prolonged his speech until midnight.

Obviously, this is what I want to talk about.

I emphasized it really big as I was reading.

Imagine if students have student ministry tonight.

Imagine if we all got together, students, tonight at 6.

You know, doors open, we play some games, we get into the word, do small groups, and then all of a sudden, we just kept going.

Parents didn't come to pick us up.

We just kept working, working, working.

All of a sudden it was midnight, and we were still going strong.

And nobody's asking to leave.

Nobody's zoning out, nobody's running around in the back because they're distracted and can't sit still.

Everybody's just locked in.

Adults, imagine you come on a Wednesday night for your Bible study, and that Zoom doesn't end.

And Alex just keeps talking.

Some of y'all are in that auditorium B, and you realize, man, it's a little bit past my bedtime, and it just keeps going and going and going.

You know?

I don't know when your bedtime is.

Some of y'all, I don't know, but some of y'all it might be later than mine, but by 9, 10 o'clock, I'm kind of like, all right, it's getting there.

Like it's it's about time to turn it in.

These people are out there till midnight.

And here's what's interesting.

A lot of people think, like, oh, this might have been impromptu.

It's not.

It's clearly not.

Because if you look at the next verse, verse 8, it says that they had many candles.

It said that there were many lamps in this upper room that they were gathered.

Now you've got to remember this is not a story happening today.

They didn't have electric, uh, electricity running through their households.

They couldn't flip on lights.

So if they wanted to stay up, most people just went to bed when the sun went down, because what were you gonna do?

Sit in the dark?

Couldn't really do anything, right?

Best you had was a lamp to light up the room.

If you've ever tried to light a room with a wick that's lit with a little flame, it doesn't light up the room all too well, does it?

You gotta put it up on a high spot like a lampstand and try and get light to the whole room and all this.

But it says that there were many lamps in the upper room.

Most households didn't have many lamps.

These people had prepared.

They had planned for this.

They knew what they were about to go do, and they brought lamps so that they could see in the room and that they could then walk home after they were finished.

Some people think that verse is included to explain why Eutychus starts falling asleep.

Maybe the candles and the fumes in the room.

I don't think that's it.

I think what this is about is these people had planned to spend all of this time in God's word.

They knew what they were getting into.

You know, they they gathered regularly.

It was a routine.

We know that from Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

Um, we know that they were gathering day by day to break bread.

And they likely gathered at some inconvenient times, right?

Because they had to work just like everybody else.

And there was no time for church yet.

It wasn't a cultural thing for them.

Was there synagogue?

Absolutely, but a lot of people who were in church also went to synagogue.

So you can't do it in the same time as the synagogue.

So they would find creative times to do it that were often inconvenient.

People have been working hard all day long.

And then in their free time, in their rest time, that is when they did church.

That is when they gathered.

I want you to consider for a moment what was this teaching worth to them?

After working all day long, all week long, they're willing to give up the time.

When I say rest time, I'm not talking about it's time to go home watch ESPN.

I'm talking about rest time like they were gonna sleep so that they could function the next day.

They're willing to give up that sleep.

They're willing to give up that rest just to hear this word proclaimed, just to be in a room with other believers and to experience the word of God.

Is that us, church?

Are we willing to sacrifice our free time to be in the word with other believers?

What if the time that we want to meet for a Bible study is inconvenient?

Are we willing to still go and do it because the word is worth more than our rest time?

And yeah, I could dog on us for watching, you know, sports or whatever during Bible study, but it's more than that, it's anything.

It's anything that takes priority over that time with other believers and with the word of God.

And I want to remind you, they were meeting day by day.

This wasn't a once-a-week ordeal.

This wasn't I checked it off and I showed up this week to church.

I'm on the attendance roll.

No.

This was a day-by-day thing.

And they were willing to pull an all-nighter.

They were willing to pull, stay up till midnight just to be a part of this.

They were gonna see each other next day.

That's how important the word was to them.

The kingdom truth here that I want us to pay attention to is this that God's word should create an eagerness in us to learn and to gather together.

You'll notice I said God's word should create this in us.

Because I know for some of us in here, we're struggling with that right now.

Maybe you don't feel that eagerness to gather and to learn.

I get that.

I've had times in my life where I'm not feeling that eagerness.

The word of God should be producing this in us, but sometimes we do things that prevent us from having that eagerness to gather and learn.

Tiredness from the work, we can do it.

Kids, I'm sure, can do it.

Alright?

I got to go to kids salt this past week.

I got a little bit of a taste of what parenting might be like.

And I'm not ready.

Alright?

Like, I'm not there.

I love these kids with all my heart.

I'm not there.

Alright?

Not ready.

I commend you guys who have done this.

Man, stuff can get in the way and kind of dispel that eagerness.

And so I want to ask you to consider for a moment what is dispelling that for you?

What is taking away that eagerness?

What's distracting you?

Is it tiredness from the work week?

Is it the mundaneness of feeling like I've done this before?

In high school, I did sports.

Um, I was one of those guys who I was mediocre at pretty much every sport, other than maybe two, really bad at basketball and soccer.

Like really, really bad.

But other than that, I was like pretty decent at all the sports.

I was okay.

But I was never good enough to like actually do it on a team.

The only thing that I was actually good enough to do on a team was cross country and track and field.

Those were the only things I could do.

There was no ball for me to mess up, alright?

I there's no coordination to it.

I just ran, alright?

Like you it was kind of a forest gump type deal, alright?

Like I just pointed me and I and I win, right?

One of the cool things is with cross country, um, I enjoyed it and track, but I enjoyed cross-country um more for the practice.

I enjoyed track more for the meets.

Um I enjoyed cross-country practice for a lot of reasons.

But one of the reasons was it taught me um early that sometimes I'm not gonna feel like doing things.

And I'm going to want to stop, and then y'all know exactly the mindset that I'm talking about, and then you just have to switch off your brain and go, I don't want to do it, but I've just got to function, I've just got to go, right?

In cross-country, the whole point is push yourself faster than you think you can go, and when your body shuts down, just keep going, right?

That's the whole idea, which sounds really dumb.

I realize that.

On paper, that sounds really, really dumb, but it's a really, really good teacher.

And it teaches you to kind of summon that mindset really, really fast.

And to go, I don't feel like doing this, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

There are some times where I realize, I'm not saying this unsympathetically, I realize there are gonna be times where you do not want to come to church.

There are gonna be times where that Wednesday night Bible study does not sound good.

There are gonna be times, some of y'all learned that we have a Wednesday night Bible study.

We do have an adult Wednesday night Bible study, y'all.

I'm sorry, I looked out and I saw a couple of faces go like this.

And I was like, no, we have we we have that.

Um here in Auditorium B.

7 o'clock.

We'll see you there.

But um, no, we sometimes that Wednesday night Bible study, that midweek, it's been a long week and it's only Wednesday.

It's only three days in, it's been a long week and it doesn't sound too good.

Sometimes Sunday mornings, it is rough getting out of bed.

Sometimes your your kids, your family might just be out of their minds that day, and it's like it might not be worth it to drag them there.

You may have just pulled an all-nighter, and you're like, I don't know if it's if it's time again to gather.

The word of God should create in us an eagerness to gather and learn.

But here's the life principle.

Here's how we apply this and plan this and play this out.

Plan and prepare.

Plan and prepare to be with God's people, talking about his word.

Do not let your circumstances keep you from church.

Come on.

The reason I put plan and prepare is if you wait until the night to decide if you're gonna go to Wednesday night church, there's a 50-50 shot that you don't go.

If you wait until then, there's a shot you don't go.

If you're waiting until Sunday morning to figure out if you're gonna come to service, you're probably not gonna go.

If you're like, oh, I might go to fulfillment hour, wait till service.

If you wait till the morning, you're not gonna want to go.

You've got to plan it out in advance and prepare yourself.

And I'm talking about serious life application here.

Lay your clothes out on Sunday morning.

Hallelujah! Like, lay your clothes out, be ready.

Because you know you aren't gonna want to do it in the morning.

I told the youth this morning, I rolled out of bed and my knees hit the floor before my feet did, and that sounds spiritual.

It wasn't.

It was just I I physically missed the floor, all right?

I physically missed the floor, and I ended up on my knees, my dog's coming to check on me.

Ketty, not disturbed at all.

She had no idea, alright?

But it was a rough morning this morning.

If we wait until the moment it's too late and we're gonna fail.

If you are somebody who gets into those routines and you miss church, miss church, and you're like, I know I need to be in church.

But then the moment comes and you don't plan and prepare just like these people.

They got the candles ready.

Thought through the walk home afterwards.

Think it through.

Be prepared.

And we as a church, we even try and look out for people, right?

Like, I mean, for youth, the simple way, we've got pizza.

We know if we're having them meet at 6 o'clock, it's gonna be hard for some parents to feed them before they get there, right?

So we do pizza.

Right?

It's not a gimmick to get kids in the door.

It's it's a, hey, we we realize it's hard, right?

We plan.

You've also got to plan and prepare, right?

I've got to plan and prepare to get out of the house on time.

That means setting 16 alarms for me.

I don't know what it means for you.

But this is the real stuff.

You know, sometimes in sermons we don't talk about this stuff.

This is the practical stuff we have to do if we're gonna go to church.

If we're gonna be a part of this.

Don't let circumstances stop you from coming to church anymore.

Now we're gonna continue.

That's the group of people that's assembled here.

Eutychus is one of these guys who's planned and prepared to be there.

So this is Acts chapter 20, verse 9.

Acts 20:9

And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep.

As Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.

We're gonna stop there.

So a lot happens in verse 9.

A lot goes down in this verse.

So first we've got a young man, his name is Eutychus.

Ironically, and it's not intentional on part of the text, it's just an ironic thing.

Eutychus actually means lucky, alright?

Actually, ironically.

Man, we've got this full room, it's full of candles.

People are packed in here so that they can spend a little bit more time with Paul before he leaves.

Spend a little bit more time with each other.

Eutychus is one of these guys.

He's packed in here.

A lot of times Eutychus gets this bad rap.

Either people say, like, oh, well, the fumes of the candles and the packed room probably and the heat of the packed room probably put him to sleep.

Again, like I said, I don't think that's why Luke included the detail about the candles.

The other thing is, Eutychus is here on this third-story building, listening to Paul because he wants to be.

He chose to be there.

He chose to come.

He didn't get dragged there.

We don't have any indication from the passage that he got dragged there by mom and dad.

Alright?

And young man, that doesn't mean child.

That means young adult.

That's what that word is talking about.

And this place is so full that he's sitting in the window.

Whether that's because there just wasn't another seat, or maybe he was trying to get some fresh air.

He's sitting in the window and he sank into a deep sleep.

The other reason some people think he falls into a deep sleep is he was bored.

But again, this guy chose to try and stay up till midnight just to hear the word of God.

He's not disinterested.

He chose to give up his free time, his rest time to be here and to hear Paul.

He's not bored.

He's tired from working.

He's tired from a busy day, a busy week.

And to the last point that we made, he was that tired, and you know how that works.

It's not like he didn't know.

You know when you're tired.

You feel it's why is why some people don't come.

He still showed up even though he was that tired.

Little side note, the youth the youth kind of know this.

I'll let some youth sleep during the sermon.

All right?

Some people get real up in arms about that.

They're like, that's disrespectful.

They came.

They set out that they could have gone anywhere and they chose to come here.

If they're falling asleep, okay.

I ain't worried about it, alright?

I'll wake them up out of love after that.

They're gone.

I see somebody doing everything.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

Everybody's starting to look really good.

No, no, no, no, no.

Y'all are good.

Y'all are good.

Man.

We need to work on the logs in our eyes because y'all were ready to jump on somebody.

Goodness.

Yeah.

I wasn't planning that, by the way.

I just saw the opportunity better.

Um, man, I'm not super concerned about that.

And listen, Alex Sands, teaching that WYSI Night Bible study, ain't gonna get on to you for falling asleep.

He ain't gonna yell at you.

I feel like some of you don't believe me.

He isn't gonna be mad at you for falling asleep.

We get it.

We've been there.

I've joked with Alex.

I was nodding off, not because he's not a great preacher, but because sometimes we come in tired.

But it's worth it to be with the people of God and to hear God's word together.

That fellowship is worth it.

Just a side note, alright?

Don't sit there worried about how presentable you are.

Just come on.

Like, just come.

We'll work with you.

We're family, alright?

We all have family members that fall asleep.

We're gonna love you.

We'll make fun of you.

We absolutely will.

Because we love you.

Alright?

That's a side note.

But now on to a more serious note, and this is the time where I'm gonna have you think about the story.

It's really easy for us to brush past what just happened.

He fell into a deep sleep.

As Paul still talked longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from a third story and was taken up dead.

We can really skip past this.

I hear this passage preached a lot, and I know I like to have fun.

I told you, I like to have fun, I like to joke.

But when you read this verse, you know, it's easy to make a joke about, you know, Paul just teaching too long, this guy fell asleep so much, he fell out a window, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But this is sad.

When you realize that this is a real story.

This is a real kid.

Somebody like my age.

Somebody who has a lot of life in front of them, and they don't know the ending of the story.

If you've read this story, you know how it ends, they did it.

This kid was overcome by sleep, he nodded off, he fell out of the third story, and was taken up dead.

Taken up dead doesn't mean they thought he was dead.

He's dead.

If you don't know this area, the world is rocky.

It ain't a soft landing.

You landed on pavers.

You landed on rock from three stories up.

He didn't survive.

He was dead.

You can probably imagine what it would have been like to be sitting in that room.

Everything's going well.

You're listening to the teaching of God's word, and then everybody hears just an uncanny thud outside.

You can imagine everybody trying to figure out what was that sound as they look back and they realize Eutychus isn't there.

As somebody looks out, sees him, screams, probably.

People probably rush down to go and get him.

It's really easy in the Bible to just rush past passages like this and not really realize it's talking about the same death that you and I have seen and experienced.

This is Samai's child.

Somebody lost a kid.

Somebody lost a brother.

Somebody lost a friend.

And you would expect, after something like that happens, as family and friends are running down to get him, that the night would be over.

As it should be.

Now I don't want you to misunderstand.

Again, he was taken up dead.

Some people think, oh, well, it sounds like he wasn't really dead.

The life is still in him.

He was knocked out, but Paul realized life still.

No.

And uh I got to hear my dad actually preached on this a couple of weeks ago, and I caught a snippet of what he said, and I really liked how he said this, so I'm gonna steal it.

The story wouldn't be worth telling had he just been knocked out.

It wouldn't be in here.

The guy is dead.

Apart from that, this story is meant to remind you of the stories of Jesus and the prophets as they raised people up from the dead.

There would be no point in telling you about Paul raising his person from the dead if they weren't really dead.

And they knew what death looked like.

They knew what people looked like when they had died.

It was pretty unmistakable.

And when Paul had gone up, he said his life is still in him.

And then just listen to what happens next.

In verse 11 and 12.

And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them for a long while until daybreak, and so departed.

And they took the youth away alive, and they were not a little comforted.

Couple of things here.

This is why this is crazy.

Again, people were grieving this guy.

People were mourning the loss of a friend, of a child.

They were mourning this loss.

Paul goes down, lays over him, and he says, his life is in him.

When he says that, he's saying it in a way that gives no credit to himself, right?

No credit to him.

It's all about what Jesus is doing in him.

Do not be alarmed.

His life is in him.

And then after Paul raises this guy from the dead by praying to Jesus, and really Paul doesn't do it, Jesus raises this guy from the dead.

Then they go back upstairs, they break bread, they eat, and he conversed with them a long while until daybreak.

So now it's not just till 12 o'clock, till 12 a.m.

Now it's until daybreak.

Now it's until the sun comes up.

They keep going.

It goes longer than intended.

I'm sure some lamps went out, alright?

They went longer than intended.

They were able to do so because even this guy dying couldn't stop what God was doing in his kingdom.

Even this guy dying wouldn't stop what God was doing in his kingdom.

Kingdom truth that we see in this is that God's will, God's kingdom will continue to advance even in spite of death.

Now I say it like that for a reason.

In this story, for God's kingdom to continue advancing, Eudychus had to be raised from the dead.

They were about to go home, the night was over, but clearly God didn't want that night to be over.

And so he raised Eudychus from the grave.

Continue that night, and to show that this truth that we're talking about upstairs is real down here.

The same God that we've just talked about, who rose people from the dead, who rose Jesus Christ from the dead, he's still doing that exact same thing today.

That's what he's showing here.

That even death can't stop this advancement of this kingdom.

But I say that full well knowing that while in this story Eutychus died and was raised from the dead, that doesn't always play out that way.

God doesn't raise everybody from the dead.

I don't say this as somebody who's never been affected by this.

I've seen people pass away, I've seen people die as well.

I've been the one praying and calling out, God, please save them.

Don't let them die.

I will say, God has said yes before.

God has kept some people alive.

But God's also said no.

God's also said no to saving friends, family, grandparents.

He said no to parents, he said no to people that we've met, church members.

And I say this not as semi-unknowing.

Um part of my story is when I was younger, I had an older sister.

Her name was Michaela, and she was two years older than me, had special needs, a condition called Batten's disease.

It's super rare.

Um if you know what Batten's disease is, I'd love to connect with you afterwards.

Like, I'll be blown away.

It's super, super rare.

She had Batten's disease, and basically Batten's disease is incurable.

It's untreatable.

It's a death sentence.

And you find out when they're a child.

My parents found out that their daughter was going to die when she was around three and four.

Started having seizures, and basically what Battens does is it is it slowly just chips away at your body.

Your body just slowly begins to shut down, system after system, until it can't take it anymore.

And so my sister that I grew up with, when I was six years old, she was nine.

She had just turned nine actually that day.

She was born on May 22nd, and she died on May 22nd.

She passed away that night.

And I remember as a kid crying out to this God who had just saved me the year prior.

I was six years old.

God, please just save my sister.

I remember trying to convince God, trying to strike up deals, trying to tell him I'll switch.

Trying to tell him, whatever it takes, I'll do it.

I won't sin anymore.

And God still said no.

And I share that, not just to evoke some emotion out of you, but to say it's really easy for us to preach on death and it to sound like we're unacquainted with it.

That's not the case.

So it's a kingdom life principle.

Whether God heals somebody or takes them, look for the purpose in how the kingdom is advancing through it.

Listen, that is not to say that it's going to make you feel any better.

It won't.

It absolutely will not.

I remember people trying to tell me, and again, I was six.

I had turned seven years old the following week.

I was like seven years old at this funeral, and people are trying to tell me, you know, God has a plan.

If you've ever been at a funeral for someone you loved and somebody tells you God has a plan, that is the worst thing they can say to you in that moment, right?

You're wrestling right now with my creator, my father, has just taken someone I loved.

Someone telling you that he has a plan is not helpful.

And I know that.

This is not meant for somebody who is grieving right off the bat.

This is not for a week of.

This is for those of us who are now living with that grief year after year.

This is for the people who you've lost somebody maybe this year, and you're finally starting to get to a point where you're looking for the meaning.

You're looking for the purpose, you're looking for the significance.

And from this story, looking at what happened with Eutychus, his death served a purpose.

To show God's power.

And the kingdom didn't stop advancing.

And I'm realizing that that how corny that may sound to somebody who, hey, God didn't raise this person.

And listen, just like I said, I don't appreciate the people who came to the funeral to tell the seven-year-old that God had a plan.

Alright?

I don't appreciate that.

However, I still love those people, don't get me wrong.

It's not like they're my life enemies.

Some of the people who said this are people that I love to this day.

They were trying their best to be helpful.

You may have said this to somebody, and you were trying to be helpful.

But as you get on down the road, you begin to wonder what was the point.

Begin to question life and why is life even a thing if it's just going to disappear?

And the answer is to advance the kingdom of God.

Life, death, everything in between.

It is for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God.

And what that can do is not make the pain go away, but it can give you a hope that other people don't have to say this was for a purpose, and there is an end to this story in which every tear is wiped away and everything is set right.

Now, with this whole passage, we're gonna read the last few verses, and then I wanna wanna actually start to end on something.

I know, you're about to get out early, about to go to lunch.

You're gonna beat people there, alright?

We're gonna be Brookwood and all them suckers who are still in church.

I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

We love our time.

That is the opposite of this message.

It's so ironically wrong, I'm sorry.

Oh my goodness.

No, man.

We are gonna read these last few verses.

And it's just gonna drill home the point even more.

Verse 13 here.

But going ahead to the ship.

All right, going ahead to the ship.

So Paul is doing what he planned on doing.

He's leaving the next day.

You can imagine he's probably pretty tired.

He just pulled an all-nighter.

Probably pretty tired.

He just emotionally is probably tired.

Just watched a kid die.

And now he's alive again.

You can imagine that is that's a lot of emotional throws to go through.

He's going ahead to set uh to the ship.

We set sail for Aesos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.

And when he met us at ASOS, we took him on board and we went to, I'm gonna try it, Middleene.

And sailing from there, we came the the following day opposite, we came the following day opposite Chios.

Uh, the next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that, we went to Miletus.

For Paul had decided to set sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

Believe it or not, I did try and say all of those words before today.

It just didn't go well.

Alright?

But you'll notice Paul still doing the ministry.

He's still advancing the kingdom.

Even after this place, he departs.

He goes to a couple of other places before hopping, meeting back up at Luke, and he hops on the ship, he does his plan, he's left the next day.

And he passes Ephesus as to not spend time.

This is important for next week, so I'm trying to help Alex out and have mentioned this to you a week in advance.

Get it in your brain.

Um, they skip past Ephesus as to not spend a whole ton of time there.

He knows he's going to spend a ton of time in Ephesus, so he goes past it, goes to Jerusalem.

He spends time there.

He's hopefully going to make it on the day of Pentecost, and then next week you'll see what ends up happening with the Ephesians.

But you can see, even after this death has occurred, even after he's been raised from his grave, the mission journey that he's on still doesn't stop.

He keeps going, the kingdom keeps advancing.

So I want to spend the last few minutes talking about that advancement of the kingdom.

What that looks like today.

And I think we've got a problem.

It's stories like this.

Like I said, it's so easy to just brush past that a guy died in this story.

Well, it's also easy to brush past some things when we've been in church for a little bit.

When we've been in church for a little bit, raise if you've been in church for five years plus.

Five years or more, all right?

Most people in the room, if you're not raising your hand, it's okay.

You're off the hook for the next thing, all right?

I'm setting them up.

So you're good.

Alright?

Now I'm just kidding, it can happen to any of us.

We've got this temptation when we've been in church for a little bit.

Anywhere in life, we learn a lot of things.

We begin to mark off, check off in our brains stuff that we know, right?

And you know the feeling.

Sometimes we get to share that information with people and it makes us feel good, you know, or the person we know, right?

Um, especially like I'll throw my dad on the bus.

I love my dad, right?

But if we're working on the car, my dad loves working on the car because he knows what he's doing.

And he's a teacher.

So when I work on the car with him, he loves teaching me what to do with the car.

Sometimes he forgets the lessons he's already taught me.

We spend a little bit longer working on the car than I intended to do.

Because he's teaching me things.

And, you know, just let him finish.

You know what I'm saying?

Like I just let him go through, let him, let him tell me.

We all get that feeling though, right?

There's something that you know a lot about, and you feel really good when you know about it.

The same thing can happen in church.

We start checking things off and say, oh yeah, that's something I learned a long time ago.

And there's some truths that we've learned in church that we mark off because they're simple.

The first truth that we've learned, right?

God can raise dead people.

We've learned that if we've heard about Jesus.

We've learned that if we've heard about the prophets, if we if we've read the gospels, do we know that Jesus can raise from the dead?

And sometimes that can kind of lose its punishment.

It's not just that, it's a lot of things.

Because when we hear something simple, we have a temptation to think that it's rudimentary when it's actually foundational.

We have a temptation to treat things as rudimentary instead of foundational.

Let me explain a little bit what that means because we all do it.

This is my warning thought.

It's easy for us to mix up rudimentary things with foundational things because rudimentary is something basic.

It's something simple, it's something basic.

It's elementary.

It comes with that idea, elementary.

It comes with the idea of being at the earliest stages of development.

Rudimentary things are simplistic things that we then move on to bigger, more complex things.

I'll give you some real examples of truly rudimentary things.

Something rudimentary is that Paul's name used to be Saul.

That's a rudimentary fact.

It's simple, you learn it, check the box, and you move on.

If you ever need to know, you got it, you got it logged away.

Rudimentary.

But foundational things are also basic.

However, they are the base from which everything else develops on.

Foundational things are things we never move on from.

But our temptation in church, a lot of times, is when we've heard that sermon before.

Oh, yeah, I've got that.

We look at it as rudimentary.

We wouldn't use the word, but that's how we look at it.

It's something rudimentary.

I've learned that.

I've already heard Alex talk about that.

I've got it.

I'm doing good.

Um, things that we learn in children's church oftentimes are things that we mark off as rudimentary.

That's simple.

I've got that in the bag.

But let me tell you, church, kindness is not rudimentary.

It's foundational.

Loving your neighbor as yourself is not a rudimentary lesson.

It's foundational.

The gospel is not a rudimentary truth, the gospel is a foundational truth.

Everything we do, everything we think, everything we say is built on that truth.

But sometimes we have a temptation to think, oh, I learned that in Christianity 101.

I'm in Christianity 102.

I've moved on, right?

I know that.

I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, I've moved on.

I know the gospel.

What it can do is sometimes when somebody's preaching, we can tune out.

Oh yeah, he's doing a great job.

And then you tune out and you just move on.

How many times have we hyped Alex of, amen, Pastor?

Oh, that's so true.

Yeah, tell him, Pastor, tell him.

Right?

Y'all have y'all ever heard somebody say tell them?

Every time that happens, I'm always kind of like, you know, like, who's saying tell 'em?

All right?

Pro tip, don't say tell them, all right?

Don't say tell them.

Not around me, all right?

Don't don't say that.

I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of give you a look, all right?

Because oftentimes the things we're saying it about are not things that we learn and move on from.

They're foundational truths that apply to every aspect of our life.

Kindness still applies to you, even if you're not a kid.

Treating others the way you want to be treated is not just the golden rule when you're a kid, it still applies today.

Oftentimes, we've got part of one of these things down, so we check it off as yeah, I get that, I do that well.

A lot of times we're we're very kind to the people sitting in these chairs because we like these people, right?

Right?

Okay.

I was really expecting y'all to say yes, and then you you didn't.

I mean, we're gonna stay here till 12, guys.

I'm sorry.

We're staying, all right?

We need this.

Man, no, we we like the people in here.

So we're kind to them.

What about the person who's smoking as you're walking into a store and you're like, man, it stinks out here?

Right?

Do you love them?

What about the person who's ringing the bell outside the store around Christmas time?

Do you love them?

The person who shows up and knocks on your door and a white button up and a bicycle.

Do you love them?

Right?

Do you love the person who's wearing a shirt with profanity on it?

Do you love the girl who shows up dressed immodestly?

Do you love the guy who comes in talking about raunchy jokes?

Are these the people that we love?

This is not a rudimentary principle, it's fundamental to who Christ calls us to be.

Like I said earlier, I uh I got I got the opportunity to go with Miss Teneal, our children's minister, which we have an incredible children's minister, by the way.

All right, yeah, we can clap.

I saw some hands, yeah.

She's awesome, all right?

She can't hear you, but she is awesome, and we all know what we did.

She is great.

I got to go with her on Kid Salt, the kids' camp that we take our kids to.

We took eight kids to kids salt this this past week, and it's awesome.

I tell people, I wait to chaperone this trip.

It is so much fun to chaperone this trip.

I love it every year.

Um, I've only done it twice, but it's been really fun both times.

But this really hit me this week.

I had started preparing this message the week before, knowing I wouldn't have a ton of time, but this week it really hit me that a lot of the things that we teach these kids are things that adults need to hear.

Because we haven't gotten them.

The way that we explain things to them this week, I was like, we need to explain this to adults.

So this morning, I'm gonna share with you some of the stuff that we did at Kids Salt to finish out our time together.

All right?

And I want to challenge you to not look at these things as rudimentary, but to look at them as fundamental.

And that the very same truth that Miss Teneal and I was sharing with these kids this week is the very same truth that can change your life this morning if you'll accept it as foundational instead of rudimentary.

The very same things that we shared with these kids this week is the very same truths that drove these people who brought their lamps to this upper room to pull an all-nighter just talking about Jesus.

These are the fundamental truths that drove them to do that.

And oftentimes we think, oh, these super Christians have something figured out that I don't.

That's not the case.

They just know the gospel so well and they love Jesus.

That's what drives them to do stuff.

You can do the incredible things that the super Christians do.

You just gotta love Jesus enough to say, you know what?

I'm willing to do anything, even if it's inconvenient and uncomfortable.

So, this is what we shared with them this past week.

Uh, this past week, we wanted to present the gospel to our kids.

And so we shared this.

Some of you will notice it, it's got a very official name, the three circles method of.

Here's what I like about it.

It can be as complex or as simple as you'd like.

But I'm gonna share with you this because when we say gospel, the kingdom kids will tell you if you say, What's the gospel?

They say the good news, right?

Well, we challenge them this week, kids tell.

What's so good about it?

What what why is it good news?

What's the news?

What is it?

A lot of people think when you say gospel that you're talking about the Bible.

That's not what we're talking about.

The gospel is the story of how Jesus has redeemed all of creation, how he has saved a broken creation.

And it starts with the driving factor that Jesus loves us.

I'm gonna explain to you just like I did the kids.

Jesus loves us so much.

He created us so that he could love us well, be in a good relationship with us, have fun with us, love us, have a relationship.

But the problem is you and I have this dark splotch on our hearts.

We have this problem that deep down in our innermost being, we may do good things on the outside, but deep down we've all got this dark spot on our hearts that makes us run away from that love.

We try and figure out life on our own and do it our own way.

But God loves us so much, even still, that he sent Jesus as the only person who didn't have a dark spot on his heart.

Jesus is the only person who didn't have that dark spot that you and I have.

Yet, Jesus is the one who died.

But he didn't have a dark spot.

He was the only one who didn't deserve to die, but he's the one who died.

He did that so that you and I could have a way to be back in a loving relationship with God.

He took the punishment for my dark heart so that I could have the reward for his clean heart.

I'm gonna say that again.

That was kind of a bar.

That was good, right?

He took the punishment for my dark heart so that I could have the reward of his clean heart.

Jesus Christ came down and he died on a cross for you to take the punishment you deserve.

Now, here's the thing that they did at Kid Salt to end it.

Or every day they did it.

But we finished on this.

You and I, I want you to think of a light switch.

It's either off or on, right?

When you walk into a room and the lights are off, the switch is just down.

That's the way the room is naturally.

If you want to see in that room, you have to walk in and you have to manually flip that light switch on.

And the same is true with us towards God.

When you are born, that switch is down.

You are not with God.

Nobody naturally is with God, and nobody just kind of happens, you know, to grow up and well, you know, I'm I grew up in a Christian household, so I guess I'm a Christian.

No.

If there has never been a time in your life when you have flipped that switch, you are still lost.

So there are three campers.

Y'all are campers today.

There are three campers in the room.

Number one is lost.

What that means is you've never flipped that switch.

There's never been a time in your life where you truly said, I want Jesus to be the boss of my life.

Here's how we flip that switch.

The way I put it to the kids is like me and Ketty getting married.

We made some promises, some vows.

And when we did that, we listed a couple of things.

So we said, we won't do this and we will do this.

Right?

The same is true with God, and Romans 10 9 tells us what it is.

Romans 10 9 tells us that there are two things, two, that we have to do to be saved.

A lot of people try and say, all you gotta do is believe.

No, that's not true.

Two things you gotta do to be saved.

You have to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, aka say, I want to do life God's way.

I want God to tell me how to do my life.

And you have to believe that Jesus died on a cross to cover your sin.

Not to take your sin away.

You're still gonna sin, but he died to cover that sin.

So even when you do mess up, he's already covered it.

This past week, we had a kid who told me, I'm a one, I'm lost, I've never flipped the switch.

But I don't think I want to, but I don't think I'm ready to.

I was like, why?

He said, I think I need to give it some time.

I was like, why?

He goes, Because I know with everything going on in my life right now, he's got he's got a rough thing going on at the moment.

He goes, with everything going on in my life right now, I am going to sin.

I'm going to sin.

And I don't want to, I don't want to make this choice and then turn around and sin.

Very articulate 11-year-old.

All right, very smart.

Also, there's a little bit of the Holy Spirit in there, like giving him some words that he wouldn't normally have, giving him some understanding he shouldn't have.

And now I got to talk to him and say, listen, Jesus is not expecting you to stop sinning.

He is covering you because he knows that you won't stop sinning.

And listen, people, I'm telling you the same thing this morning because I know there are people in here who wonder, am I saved?

Am I a number one?

Am I still lost?

I don't think I've ever made that decision to flip that switch.

And maybe the thing holding you back, maybe the thing keeping you in your seat today is that you know that you're gonna mess up and you're gonna sin.

Jesus knows that too.

And he still died for you, and he still wants the relationship with you.

He knows you're gonna mess it up and he wants you anyway.

That's crazy.

That is such a wild thing.

That Jesus knew how bad I'd mess up and he still wanted me at six years old.

He knew what I'd do when I became a teenager, he knew what I was gonna do when I started dating.

He knew what I was gonna do whenever I had an anger issue.

He knew what I was gonna do when I was on that sports team, and yet he still saved me at six.

If you are saved in this room, he knew everything you were gonna do and everything you're gonna do after today because you're gonna mess up again.

If you are a number one and that's holding you back, he already knows that you're gonna screw it up.

And he loves you anyway, and he still wants your relationship.

Number two is a lukewarm Christian, somebody who they've made that decision, they flipped that switch, but they have not been living like it.

Maybe you realize today that, hey, I don't have that excitement about gathering with God's people, that eagerness that it's supposed to produce in me to gather with God's people around his word.

I don't have that.

I need to get that back.

I need to find that eagerness to come to church again.

Maybe for you, you've lost somebody.

And you just haven't been talking to God.

You've been distant with him, keeping him at arm's length because you're not happy with him.

Maybe today you're realizing God has a plan that's bigger than mine and better than mine.

And although I'm still gonna be angry, I'm still gonna be mad, I'm still gonna be sad, I need to surrender to that plan.

Maybe today you realize you're a number two.

You're a Christian who's not living it out right now.

Number three is the Christian.

Here's your job, the job that he gave all the Christian kids this week, and the job that I'm giving you.

If you are a Christian today, you are living all of this stuff out, you don't feel the need to come get help, then what I want you to do is I want you to pray for the people who do need it.

And I don't mean that thing where you close your eyes and you maybe say one sentence, God, please move them, and that's it.

Be persistent.

Like the parable of the widow.

Be persistent with God, saying, God, not not repeating up, heaping up empty phrases.

That's not what we're talking about here.

What we're talking about is, God, I genuinely and truly want to see this person come to know you today.

God, remove any and begin to have a whole conversation with him during this response time.

So I'm gonna make it real clear.

If you are a number one, you realize I've never flipped that switch, but I need to this morning.

I've been putting it off.

I know that I need to flip that switch.

I know that Jesus Christ died for me on the cross, take the punishment that I deserve for my dark heart, and I want to do life his way from now on.

If that's you, whenever we pause the song, I'm gonna reiterate this again.

It will be your cue to walk down here and to make that decision.

Come and talk to one of us, whether it's me, whether it's somebody on our prayer team, come down to the front and talk to somebody if you are a number one and need to make that decision.

For my twos in the room, you realize that you're struggling with one of the two points that we talked about.

I also invite you to come down to the front or find somebody with you to pray with.

And to say, I need to do business with God right now.

Can you pray with me?

Fellowship with them in this.

Ask them to help you.

And finally, if you're a Christian, once again, please pray for these people to have boldness to do this.

To not delay any longer.

We're gonna give you a part of a song to just prayerfully consider what God wants you to do.

We don't want you to make some impulsive brash decision.

If I can talk you out of following Jesus, you probably don't need to follow him right now.

You're probably not ready.

So I want you to spend the next few minutes praying, asking Jesus, what would you have me do during this time?

Don't think of these things as rudimentary.

They're foundational.

They affect everything about us.

They affected everything about the people in that room that night.

It was why they went back up and kept worshiping.

So I'm gonna invite you to do the same.

Worship together and prayerfully consider what Jesus would have you do.

God, I ask you to give boldness where it's needed this morning.

Jesus, remove distractions from this room.

We oftentimes think about this with kids and students, but Jesus, we get distracted and we need your help.

Help us to not get distracted by things around us.

Help us to do business with you.

Give us direction on what each of us are supposed to do this morning.

Whether we're a one and need to respond to you for the first time, whether we're a two and we need to get some things right in our relationship, or whether we're a three and we need to pray on behalf of our brothers and sisters and our future brothers and sisters.

Jesus, give us clarity and give us boldness.

In your name we pray.

Amen.